'AI should be a choice. Here's where you stand': 90% of DuckDuckGo users vote no to AI in poll

If you thought AI was hated by Windows 11 users, that's nothing compared to the denizens of DuckDuckGo based on a new poll by the maker of the search engine.

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VideoCardz spotted the results of the poll where a healthy 175,000 votes were cast. 90% of respondents chose to say no to using AI with the search engine, with the remaining 10% happy to go with AI in their results.

That's a resounding thumbs-down for AI, but we should, of course, take the source into account here.

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine, and those searching the web via this engine obviously place a strong emphasis on keeping a tight rein on their personal data when browsing.

So, those are the kind of people who absolutely won't trust AI, due to suspicions about where any data used to help them, on the face of it, might end up.

Really, then, it's no surprise that so many DuckDuckGo users, who are seriously skeptical by their very nature, expressed an anti-AI opinion. If Google asked its users, the results would likely be quite different.

That said, I'd be interested to see how different the voting would turn out.

As you may have guessed, DuckDuckGo has introduced AI features to its search engine, including an AI-powered 'search assist' ability, and a Duck.ai chatbot that facilitates access to various third-party AI models (all anonymized).

There are actually two versions of the DuckDuckGo search engine now, one of which packs said AI features, and the other which has them all turned off (and hides AI images), for those who don't want any truck with AI. That'll be the vast majority, then, going by this poll.